


Five Times Sam Dreamed of Daniel --

by thayln



Category: Stargate SG-1
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-16
Updated: 2014-03-16
Packaged: 2018-01-16 00:10:39
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,877
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1324399
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thayln/pseuds/thayln





	Five Times Sam Dreamed of Daniel --

1) "Come on, Daniel. It's an incredible opportunity to study a parallel culture. Just come on out." Sam carefully hid her grin. Revenge was just too sweet.

"No." Daniel's voice was muffled by the dressing room door.

"What ever happened to living and dressing like one of the locals, Mr. Anthropologist?"

"Argh! Fine! Okay, fine!" The dressing room door slammed open and Sam gasped.

Sam sat straight up in bed and slapped at the damn alarm till it finally died. Then she slumped back against her pillow and tried to recapture the fading images from her dream. Wow! Who would ever have thought that Daniel would look that good in fishnet stockings.

 

2) It was late into third shift and Sam was still crunching away on her laptop. She actually preferred this time of night. It was quiet, so quiet that she could hear the mountain breathing, a soft sigh of ventilated air that played under the soft tapping of her keyboard. In the quiet her thoughts could run like water onto the screen, clear and clean. There were no interruptions to muddy her thinking . . . well, except from one person. 

But somehow, she never minded when Daniel wandered in. His voice always slipped easily into her thoughts, his mind both a mirror and a focus. He challenged her. He got her. And she held that knowledge somewhere inside as a rare and precious thing.  
She could hear him now. Comforting, familiar footsteps echoed down the hall, stopped at her door, and Daniel's face appeared behind her, a dark reflection in her laptop screen.

"Hey, Sam, whatcha workin' on?"

She grinned and turned to greet him, but he was gone. 

He was gone.

Sam woke with a gasp, almost falling off her stool. The gasp tried to turn into a harsh sob, but she absolutely would not let it. She scrubbed angrily at her face, squared her shoulders, and got back to work analyzing the new Naquadria samples.

 

3) Fishing was soporific work, even if there were fish in the pond. Sam shifted lower in the chair and listened to the low murmur of Teal'c’s and Daniel's conversation behind her mixing with the zur of insects and the wind in the trees. Beside her, the Colonel reeled his line in and made another lazy cast. Sam smiled, closed her eyes against the late afternoon sun and drifted. It was so peaceful here. She almost felt as if she were floating up out of her chair into the light that brightened and brightened till she had to squint against it and look away, look down.

Daniel was kneeling far below her in desert robes, working alone beside a largish mound in the sand. 

Sha’re?, Sam wondered. But no, the mound was too big for just one grave. Something in Sam twisted uneasily, and her perspective shifted till she was close behind him, looking over his shoulder as he chipped away at a flat hunk of stone. His hands were bruised, nails torn and dirty, but his fingers held the hammer and chisel precisely, even elegantly, as he patiently worked an image into the rock. It was slow work. He’d make a few measured taps then lean over and blow softly at the loosened flakes and dust.

Every once in awhile he’d sip from the skin of water at his side, and pour a little on a rag he wore around his neck. For some reason she thought, “Good. He’ll take care of himself.” Daniel always had, she suddenly realized. For all that he pushed his limits, he’d always been self sufficient. Why didn’t that thought comfort her?

She looked up at the sun and the wind gusted, sent the sand slithering in a silken rush. Time jumped, lurching forward. When she looked down again the image had taken shape, an almost complete circle surrounding a triangle topped by a smaller circle. At first she could only marvel at how perfect the arc of the circles were. Daniel hadn’t used a compass or even a pencil. Then she realized just what the stone was.

She stood withered, frozen, as Daniel carefully put his tools away in a pouch on his belt, picked up the stone and stood slowly, rubbing a little at his knees with one hand. He walked the few steps over to the mound and laid the stone in its exact center then stood for a moment, arms limp, eyes searching the distance. His mouth opened slightly, and Sam shuddered, terrified that he would speak, that his voice would make the dream real, but no words came. Daniel simply drew his hood over his head and turned and walked away.

She watched him for a long time—a solitary figure moving in and out of dune shadows, heading into the sunset. 

 

4) Sam tried to follow Daniel through the marble halls as quietly as she could, but the coins around her wrists and ankles made soft music whenever she moved, and there wasn't time to stop and try to figure out how to undo them. The coiled whip at Daniel's side slapped gently against him as he turned to her and held out an urgent hand. His eyes scanned the long hallway behind them.

"Come on!"

She heard it then, an echo of booted feet coming after them, and she grabbed his hand and ran, trying not to trip them up in the ridiculous lengths of sheer gauze that draped her. They skidded around the next corner and Daniel pulled her into a tiny curtained alcove in which they almost couldn’t fit. She leaned against him and tried to catch her breath, tried not to be aware of the heat coming off his body, of the leather jacket smell of him. His arms tightened around her and she looked up into his too-knowing gaze, barely shadowed by the battered fedora still on his head. Unbidden, her hand reached up to brush against the stubble on his jaw and his head slowly lowered toward her . . .

"Whoa!" Sam jerked awake and looked around wildly for a moment. Right. Earth. Mountain. Infirmary. She looked blearily over at the tv screen. Indy was clinging like a spider to the side of a cliff. Wasn't that where he was when she fell asleep?

Cameron drawled from the next chair over, "Good, you're awake. It's your turn to make popcorn."

Sam's voice was scratchy. "Remind me again of why we're doing this?"

"Cause Lamb says we'll be in quarantine for at least another 48 hours, and Vala over here talked us into watching the Indiana Jones marathon, claiming it would be a good opportunity for her to assimilate Earth culture." Cameron was idly twirling the upside down popcorn bowl on one finger and was slumped so low in his armchair that his butt was almost hanging off. 

A commercial came on, and on the other side of Cameron, Vala swung around sideways in her chair and slung her legs over the arm. "Da-an-iel? " she sing-songed, looking over her shoulder at the corner where he and Teal'c were bent over a quiet game of chess.

"Y-e-s," Daniel sing-songed right back without looking up from the board.

"Have you thought about getting a fedora? I really think it would make you look quite dashing"

"Yeeaaah . . . no." Daniel made a decisive move. "Check"

Teal'c scowled down at the board, but a corner of his mouth twitched.

Vala pouted.

Sam shuddered and got up to go make popcorn.

 

5) The pain was everything, everywhere—an endless, soulless banshee howl in her ears, a shimmer of heat waves distorting her vision, making it hard to focus on Cameron as he bent over the rickety table that held the laptop, generators and Merlin's device. The pain rolled over her in another wave, pinning her to the cot, and she bit down on a tiny moan. She hardly noticed when Cam came over and gave her a shot of morphine, just concentrated on breathing through the slowly receding waves. Cam was saying something, but it was lost as she finally spiraled out of herself into a plane of darkness.

Was this place death? It was as vast as the void between stars, infinite. It pulled at her, made her want to fill it with her consciousness, give it boundaries. But she sensed that to do so would stretch her, thin the bonds between her atoms till she just flew apart. She wrapped her arms tight around herself, concentrating on the memory of her solidity, her heartbeat. Okay, maybe not dead, yet. But where…

As she slowly remembered her form the very space around her seemed to become malleable, something she could affect. Perhaps . . . . she pictured light in her mind, candles glowing in Teal’c’s room, and it worked. Dim light grew, spreading like mist, revealing nothing that yet had potential to be something. It flickered just outside the edges of her vision.

And she realized she wasn’t alone. She squinted across the indeterminate distance echoing between her and someone . . . it was a man. There was something familiar in the tired hunch of shoulders, in the sudden sharp turn of his head as he noticed her. He rose and started to come towards her then, changing, pulling his shape out of the shifting landscape: a weary, once-powerful form with a silver skullcap pacing through damp forest; a grey robed figure moving through a darkly shimmering hall of stone columns; a quaint, be-speckled old man walking down a hallway filled with pictures; someone in a black leather coat striding urgently towards her down a canyon of city streets. Each one carried an Ori staff.

She shook her head and clenched her eyes tight for a moment, trying to clear the drugged haze. When she opened them again it was Daniel, but a Daniel she’d never seen. Power cloaked him, crackled around him. His eyes blazed with knowledge, both Merlin’s and his own, and she was suddenly afraid. How had she never realized this potential in him, understood just what he’d given up when he’d fallen back into solid flesh? He was almost arrogant, defiant as he faced her, clothed yet naked, letting her see everything he’d hidden even from himself.

“Who are you?” She was ashamed of how her voice trembled.

He looked at her then, really looked at her, and she gasped as her mind remembered pain. She started to fall even as his hand reached out, and she slammed back into her body, into the tiny house that was both there and not.

“Sam?” Daniel was kneeling down next to her, sharp concern creasing his forehead, and he was achingly familiar again, rumpled and unshaven. There were dark shadows under his eyes.

“You look tired.” Her voice was a croak.

"Sam." He shook his head a little, and she cringed at the pain that flared in his eyes.

She couldn't speak.

He sighed and laid a strangely weightless hand on her, covering the makeshift dressing. His eyelids fluttered. Then he smiled, and it was Daniel’s smile, and all the lines smoothed out of his face. 

Warmth filled her.

His hand moved to feather through her bangs like a wisp of breeze. "It's okay. You're going to be okay."

And somehow, she believed.


End file.
